A tragic argument in golf right now is whether the game needs to get smaller. Designer Sam Beckman has a different answer: educate.
In this episode of The Bag Drop: Untold Stories in Golf, host Matt Considine and co-host Dr. Kevin Moore (a.k.a. "The Professor") sit down with Samuel Beckman (owner and designer behind Emergency 9 Golf) to talk about building golf courses that clubs can actually afford to keep — and about the high school coaching job that turned out to fill the void he missed from leading large teams in corporate America.
The conversation dives into:
- Why Sam came in at roughly half the master planning fee at Ridgeway, on purpose, and what "any budget" really costs the person who says it
- North Hills, where the greens had shrunk from six thousand square feet to three thousand, and every one of them is being rebuilt — from a single pin position to as many as sixteen
- The tee boxes at Port Huron that Matt couldn't stop noticing, and why Scotland taught Sam that you play through a golf course rather than over it
- Glen Flora's restoration: two bunkers a year, built in-house with a Kubota front loader straight through COVID, and a membership that went from 160 to 275
- Why the superintendent is a co-author on every project, and the day one of them answered a steep bunker face with "we're gonna buy robots"
- Twenty-nine girls on the Lake Forest team, a Coaches Cup played for an old brass flower vase, and the freshman's video that got Sam through a bad day
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Chapters
00:00 Educate the game, don't shrink it
00:20 Welcome to The Bag Drop
00:32 Post-trip depression and the two Kevins
02:23 Today's guest: Sam Beckman, a.k.a. The Mule
04:39 The Port Huron tee boxes Matt couldn't stop noticing
05:37 A shout-out to Andrew Bailey's Mid-Am win
06:33 The Professor's teaching: who actually makes America's beef
08:37 Ad read: Inglewood Associates
10:29 Twenty-nine girls, and a 59 at sectionals
14:43 How an architect ended up coaching high school golf
16:16 Coaching like a caddie, not an architect
18:17 "I hate your bunkers": hosting conference at Glen Flora
19:36 Ireland and Scotland, with Dad along for the ride
22:31 Lahinch in the snow, and going back anyway
25:57 Carnoustie isn't pretty, and that's the point
28:23 You don't play over a golf course, you play through it
30:41 Twenty feet up to every tee, and what it costs your legs
32:35 Port Huron's master plan is written into the bylaws
35:16 North Hills: the greens that lost half their size
38:27 From one pin position to sixteen
40:39 The superintendent is a co-author
44:18 No offense, Bob, but you're a dentist
45:58 Stress-testing "any budget"
47:27 Glen Flora: a Kubota, a pandemic, and two bunkers a year
51:05 Ridgeway: half the fee, and crews brought in as needed
53:20 Golf needs to be affordable — pick the model that fits
55:02 Waste not, want not: what David Savic taught him
56:46 Nationwide wasn't a bad fit
59:54 What he actually missed: building people
1:02:48 The pub outside London that restarted everything
1:05:04 Why Surrey should be your first trip, not your third
1:07:11 Huntercombe and Ridgeway: weird in the coolest way
1:09:44 Does Wisconsin need to chill out? "Double down."
1:12:39 The Coaches Cup and a brass flower vase
1:16:46 Nineteen seniors at a school of twelve hundred
1:19:32 Golf's quiet shortage: coaches
1:20:52 Smile when they walk in the door
1:22:36 Thanks, Sam — and Inglewood
